30 Day @Neilbytes Blogging Challenge

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It was a violent week to live in Wilkes-Barre. There’s been three shootings in as many days. According to the Citizens’ Voice, it’s been over 6 months since the last fatal shooting in the Diamond City. In the last 36 hours: an alleged accidental shooting occurred on South Street, a drive-by happened on South Main Street and a suspicious fatal shooting was discovered on Carey Ave. The comment sections on most of the local media websites are typically a hot bed of troll activity for events such as this, but you’ve got to wonder if sometimes they make a good point…

I don’t think I could have said this better myself.

Zeroing in on the drive-by shooting at (“the club”) Club Envy. When I first learned of the news of this shooting, I assumed that it happened in downtown Wilkes-Barre or around Public Square since that is where most of the clubs and drinking establishments are. Nope. It actually happened at the old “Outsiders” biker bar next to Main Hardware (home of “Christmasland”) on South Main Street. If you follow the papers, “Outsiders” was a known trouble spot for years, constantly in trouble with the LCB for one thing or another. It was shutdown after DJ Mo tragically lost his life in a similar incident in 2013, a year which netted 13 homicides in Wilkes-Barre. You’d like to think that with a name and management change that the culture would also change, but yeahhhhh… not so much.

I’ve gone to the old “Outsiders” 3 times when I lived in the city. Once with a friend, once with my husband, and once alone. The (last) time I went alone was a liquid lunch after I lost my job at Frontier on October 31, 2007. I did not run into trouble on any of these occasions. Am I missing something? Are people being specifically targeted? What exactly is going on here? The likely answer is that the incidents were drug or gang related. Regardless, the violence and loss of life is stupid and senseless.

I hope the police get to the bottom of it before another incident occurs.

I’ve been under the care of the neurologist since last September for my recurring migraines. I’m actually experiencing one right now…joy! It feels like it could be sinus related, but it also could be the fact that I’ve been up since 1:30am and I’m too tired to think. I let the prescribed medicine figure it out for me so I don’t have to. I’m on a pina colada of medication which I take at the onset of the headache. Somedays, when I get one, I get these weird eye flash things that render me blind. My only option when this happens is to close my eyes and wait until it passes. What does it look like? Well, like this…

Flashy flashy flashy flashy. According to Wikipedia, this phenomenon is called “scintillating scotoma”. Usually, when I see one of these bad boys pop into my field of vision, I know that a migraine is imminent. There’s nothing I can do but try to head it off with a pass with the medication. Although there’s nothing I can take that will stop the eye flashes specifically. It is possible to get the migraines without the flashes. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why the flashes appear sometimes and other times do not. Luckily, my current migraine had no eye flash associated with it. Just pain.

In doing all of the tests required by my doctors, I found out that I have a deviated septum which may or may not be causing me to snore like a water buffalo and wake myself up throughout the night. The snoring may also be coming from sleep apnea. There’s only one way to know for sure…a sleep study…which is what I’ll be doing on Monday. During. The. Day. It was the quickest appointment they could get me in for and to assist with the day sleeping, they are drugging me up with 2 Ambien. Swell. I’ve never been for one of these type of tests before, but I’m told it’s harmless, its just very difficult to sleep with the amount of machines and wires they hook up to you. (And during the day)

The deviated septum and/or sleep apnea is affecting the quality of my sleep. The lack of quality sleep is causing the migraines. Everything is supposedly related.

I’m not sure what the next steps will be after the tests, but from a few friends I learned that getting a CPAP may be an option. What’s a CPAP? An ugly ass mask that forces your airways open so you don’t snore and wake up throughout the night. It’s not sexy.

Would you want to sleep next to this?

It’s enough to frighten small children away.

We’ll see what happens, but for now, I’m going to lay down in a dark room with my Amerge and Naproxen Sodium. Weeeee.

Twitter instigator @Neilbytes has challenged me to start updating my blog every day, sorta like Andy Palumbo. I’ve been itching to write more, I’ve just been wayyyy too exhausted to do so. For me, blogging ranks behind my job, family, life, sleep and whatever else. I was supposed to start this challenge several days ago, but with limited time on my hands and then a stomach bug, I put it off.

Blogging stopped being fun for me around the time when I noticed anonymous commenters calling out other bloggers for lack of research and spelling errors on their blogs, particularly on the LuLac. Researching and proofreading everything 5 times over exhausts me. I don’t have the time or the energy for that. I write about what I know, which is mainly only my life experiences.

Work hasn’t been easy these last two months. I’ve been stuck on an early AM shift until one of my co-workers gets back from sick leave. I’m exhausted all of the time, I haven’t been sleeping well and I never see my family. I’m awake when everyone is asleep and vice versa. My days off are during the week when everyone is at work or school. I’m just kind of hanging in there until something improves. I have no idea when that will be at this point. Hopefully soon.

So that’s it for now. I’ll be back tomorrow and for the next 29 days to talk about God knows what. I’m open to any suggestions you may have. I have a few ideas and things to get off of my chest.